World Sickle Cell Day is an annual day of recognition to raise international awareness around SCD and the challenges patients and families face when confronting this illness. At St. Jude, sickle cell is more than a disease that gets the spotlight for one day — it is a continuous effort to save children around the world.
When is World Sickle Cell Day?
World Sickle Cell Day, sometimes referred to as World Sickle Cell Awareness Day, is June 19.
St. Jude patient Za'Mya
Thanks to generous donors like you, St. Jude has made the following advances:
- Developed one of the largest sickle cell programs in the country.
- Treats more than 900 patients with sickle cell disease annually
- Offers seven different clinical trials for patients, including a CRISPR gene editing trial
- Leads the Sickle Cell Clinical Research and Intervention Program (SCCRIP), which studies how sickle cell disease progresses over time, and how we can improve the quality of life for sickle cell disease patients while we continue to search for cures.
- Will invest $1.1 billion over the next six years to expand research and treatment programs to advance cures for childhood diseases such as sickle cell disease.
- St. Jude is involved with many clinical research studies to investigate a variety of treatments for sickle cell diseases, such as the use of hydroxyurea. This drug boosts the level of fetal hemoglobin. Studies have shown that patients with higher levels of this form of hemoglobin tend to have fewer symptoms of sickle cell disease..
- St. Jude also develops collaborative research partnerships with the National Institute of Health and other institutions throughout the world.
I want her to do everything and more – despite sickle cell.
Sickle cell patient Za'Mya's mom
Meet Za’Mya
Currently thriving, Za’Mya has been a patient at St. Jude since shortly after birth, when a newborn screening revealed she had sickle cell disease.
Learn more about sickle cell research at St. Jude
St. Jude is leading the way the world understands, treats and defeats childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases, such as sickle cell disease.
St. Jude has been committed to researching, understanding and improving standards of care for people with sickle cell disease since our very beginning. The first grant the hospital ever received was for the study of sickle cell disease in 1958, before the hospital was even built.
Finding a cure for sickle cell disease
Scientific milestones mark the progress made by St. Jude toward finding a cure for sickle cell disease.
Gene editing brings new era of hope for cure to sickle cell disease
St. Jude doctors and scientists work to help kids with sickle cell live longer, healthier lives in the U.S. and worldwide.
Making history
When St. Jude opened in 1962, Danny Thomas vowed the hospital would treat patients regardless of race, religion or ability to pay. In 1968, Dr. Rudolph Jackson became one of the first Black doctors at St. Jude.
Forging a path
Driven by the tragic loss of her daughter who was born with SCD, Maurice Walton Tate was a nurse who served in many sickle cell units and helped forge a path for others.
St. Jude patient Avery with her mom
St. Jude has given us the hope that she can be a child and enjoy life like any other 7-year-old. With St. Jude we can hope, and we can dream.
Sickle cell patient Avery's mom
Meet Avery
Avery’s mom, Valentine, can’t forget the day of her daughter’s kindergarten school trip to the zoo. Avery woke up early and excited for the adventure with her friends. A few hours later, everything changed. The teacher called and said Avery, who was diagnosed with sickle cell disease soon after birth, was in severe pain. Valentine picked up Avery and took her home.
“She cried all the way home, and it broke my heart,” Valentine recalled.
Sickle cell disease (SCD) is an inherited blood disorder that affects a person’s red blood cells.
Normal blood cells
Sickled blood cells
Facts about sickle cell disease
One out of every 13 African Americans in the U.S. has the sickle cell trait, with a chance of having a child with sickle cell diseases if both parents carry the trait.
Approximately 100,00 people in the United States have SCD.
According to the CDC, SCD is the most common among people with ancestors from Sub-Saharan Africa, South America, the Caribbean, Central America, Saudi Arabia, India and Mediterranean countries such as Turkey, Greece and Italy.
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What does sickle cell disease do?
Normal red blood cells contain hemoglobin A, which carries oxygen from the lungs to all parts of the body. People with sickle cell disease have red blood cells that contain mostly hemoglobin S, which causes the red blood cells to change from the round shape to a banana or “sickle” shape. Some complications from sickle cell disease include:
• infections
• painful swelling of hands and feet
• fatigue
• stroke
• organ damage
• pain
St. Jude patient Elani with her mom
The care at St. Jude helped us to not focus on her illness and focus more on her holistically. St. Jude didn’t just treat sickle cell, they treated Elani. They thought about her mental well-being, they thought about dental, things that we didn’t even think about.
Sickle cell patient Elani's mom
Meet Elani
Just days after she was born, Elani was diagnosed with sickle cell disease, devastating the family that already had big dreams for the tiny girl’s future.
“Initially, here’s this beautiful baby that you’ve been given,” said her mom, Darnita.
But her baby would face a lifetime of challenges.
St. Jude has been a pioneer in sickle cell care.
Vernon Rayford, MD
Dr. Vernon Rayford is an internal medicine and pediatric specialist. His support for St. Jude grew as he began to feel kinship with renowned African American physician Dr. Rudolph Jackson, who helped St. Jude become a leader in care and research for sickle cell disease.
St. Jude is the kind of place that speaks to who we all are as people and what we want to accomplish for humankind.
David McKinney
Through workplace, family and fraternity, David McKinney has been a lifelong supporter of St. Jude. Now, he’s encouraging his son to join the mission.
St. Jude patient Elani and her mother
Help us find a cure for sickle cell patients
Unlike other hospitals, the majority of funding for St. Jude comes from generous donors.
Because of your support, we can provide children cutting-edge treatments not covered by insurance, at no cost to families.
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